Shayna Baszler details being told she’d win the RAW Women’s Championship in 2020.
Back in 2020, Shayna Baszler arrived on WWE’s main roster and made an impact like few before her. She eliminated every woman in the Elimination Chamber to earn a WrestleMania title match and looked destined to become RAW Women’s Champion. However, after losing to Becky Lynch at the ‘Show Of Shows’, Baszler’s momentum on the red brand never reached the level she had prior. Now, the 45-year-old has opened up on the original plans for her main roster call-up.
Speaking with Chris Van Vliet on Insight, Shayna Baszler recalled being directly told she’d beat Becky Lynch for the RAW Women’s Championship, also touching on how she was factored into Money in the Bank plans.
“I was originally told, and who knows in this business, but I was originally told like, ‘Yeah, you’re gonna go into a feud with Becky and eventually win the title after.’ COVID happens and then we all get told, ‘Well, there’s gonna be no audience, so we want a title change like that to happen in front of a live crowd.’ And remember at that time, we didn’t know this was gonna be like a year. So we’ll wait until we get back to live crowds and we’ll just keep extending the thing. And then Becky gets pregnant and they don’t want to just award a title to me… They’re like, ‘Yeah, not in front of no audience. What we’re going to do is we’re going to shoot cinematic Money in the Bank up the tower. You’re going to win that and then carry your feud on with Becky as the Money in the Bank winner.’ We get there and they’re reading us the general idea for Money in the Bank in Titan Tower. And we’re like, ‘Alright, and then Asuka climbs and wins.’ But they had told me, ‘You’re going to win Money in the Bank.’ So my newly called up NXT fresh meat is going, ‘Oh my God, they’ve lost faith in me. They hate me. They don’t want me to be in this. They’re taking me out of the thing.’ Becky comes out and announces this whole thing about being pregnant. The winner of the Money in the Bank won the title. And I was like, ‘You guys couldn’t have told me? Because I’ve been thinking this whole time that I’m the worst and you guys hate me. But you couldn’t have been like, hey, it’s not you. We can’t tell you why. You’ll find out.’”
-Shayna Baszler
Baszler spent around five years on WWE’s main roster, though she never made her way back to world championship contention after not reaching the mountaintop in 2020. Her contract was allowed to expire back in July 2025, although she noted in the Van Vliet interview that she occasionally works as a guest coach at the Performance Center.
As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on WWE’s original plans for Shayna Baszler as soon as we hear more.
